Hard disk music question

[Fran]

$48 a year... and you get discounts on downloaded concerts. Probably worth it if you were going to download a few. The 96kbps stream I had here tonight sounded pretty OK though.

Ivor: yes you should. Its an absolute treasure trove and free!

[mick]

I signed up for the wvip membership. I stream music at 192kbs and it does make a significant differance. I have not been able to use foobar to play them so I use wolfangs own streamer. By the way I have recently set up my system to play music on my computer. I already had a P3A/P1A using a Meridian 500 transport through digital rca cable. I had to use another input on the dac so the most convenient was the xlr connection. I got a Hagusb converter. I use a Russ Andrews usb cable from a laptop to the Hagusb. I use a Missing Link xlr cable from the Hagusb to the dac. I believe the sound quality to be really good . It is not quite as good as the Meridian cd transport but not far behind.
I had been looking at an external hard drive to back up music and photos from my laptop. I also wanted to go the wireless route. I wound up getting a Pogoplug which connected using ethernet to my router which is in my hall. I then connected a Samsung external harddrive to the pogoplug using a usb cable. I backed up my music onto the Samsung through the pogoplug. Any computer in the house can access the files on the samsung wirelessly, so I started up a 10 year old dell laptop,, which I was about to throw out and it could access the music files (ITunes) on the Samsung.
I deleted nearly all software on the dell ( it was so slow)and installed Foobar. I now use foobar to play all the music from my iTunes which is now backed up on the samsung. I leave the dell beside my hifi so it is just like another component. All the above was PnP and no extra drivers were required. I can now have music playing all day without having to go near the hifi to change cds or records.I hope this is of some interest to anyone thinking of taking the leap into computer music.

Mick

[tony]

That vault is a treasure trove especially for 60's to late 70's. I think it starts getting thin on modern stuff.
The idea of streaming and playing through the hifi is great as listening thru pc speakers is relativelyl disappointing.

Another angle on the pc to hifi thread, this unit (Project USB box) seems very reasonable has anybody had experience with it. It seems a simpler solution than the hiface but I am wondering if the quality suffers.

http://www.project-audio.com/main.php?p ... es&lang=en

[Ken Moreland]

Got my modified Hiface from John today in the post. The battery charger arrived last week and even though I had screwed up my entry on the form and hadn't added the USPS request, I mailed a request and they refunded the difference, so very impressed by their service. I was able to plug the Hiface directly into an old Sony Vaio laptop without the need for a usb cable and then into a Benchmark DAC1.
I had already ripped a few CD's and stored in wav format on the hard drive and also downloaded a few test tracks from http://hdtracks.com/ in 24bit/96khz format and from http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html in 24bit/192khz format. I also downloaded Foobar and it's Kernel Streaming plugin.
Hiface installation today was straightforward and complete in 10 mins.
Everything played perfectly (although I think the laptop is running flat out) and is very impressive on all formats but especially so on known cd's where I am familiar with the sound.The hi-res tracks are very good but I don't have comparisons. The cd tracks through hiface are very alive and vibrant. Early impressions are certainly very favourable.
I also listened to some concert tracks from Wolfgang's Vault and these are very good although I cannot tell the sampling rate. Louis Armstrong Live at Newport is excellent and if you like Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue the Madison Square Garden 1975 is great.
Overall, delighted with the sound and the Hiface opens up a lot of music for relatively low cost.

[Fran]

yes, I'm currently looking at picking up a tablet PC and using the hiface....

Fran

[jkeny]

Ken,
Thanks for the post & delighted you like the sound - it really is up there, isn't it?

Fran is correct, the computer you use to playback from is an important part of the sound & for best sonics & serious listening you should really use a dedicated computer with as few process running as possible - definitely no internet access, WiFi, etc. I don't know what OS you are using but Windows 7 sounds better than XP using Foobar. A lot of people say playback from SSD or RAM sounds better than from hard disk. If running from a laptop try running from battery only.

Now for the next & best tip - use a RF attenuator on the SPDIF cable, Without going into the technical way these work what they do is reduce the jitter on the cable & it can be easily heard - ask Fran. What you want are these http://www.minicircuits.com/cgi-bin/mod ... type=model They are £12 each from their UK branch. I would get 6, 10, 15dB to have a range to try - there is no prescribed best one!

See here for more info & for some users reviews http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?to ... #msg796176

Edit: Forgot to add - you will need a RCA/BNC adaptor as you have a RCA SPDIF cable & these attenuators only come in BNC style!

[Fran]

I have a few of these attenuators on order, after having heard them thought they were worth the $$. The shipping is a little saucy, so its well worth while a few getting together and buying a few.

As an aside, my copy of stereophile dropped through the door the other day and i'm only getting to reading it now. Lots of show reports - and each correspondant has mentioned how more and more PC based stuff is on show at the big expos. It seems that there is now a number of these devices about to come to market (at more $$ than the hiface I would imagine).

The tone of the thing is that the PC based stuff is about to undergo a resurgence akin to the vinyl a few years back.


Fran

[jkeny]

Good point, Fran, but it's also worth pointing out that these are not thought to be usable on any SPDIF signal, only those signals that are higher than normal which the Hiface is. I believe that may well be applicable to a wide range of devices between the transport & the DAC but it really depends on the technical details of the transport & DAC.

[Ken Moreland]

Thanks John and Fran, the laptop is dedicated to this job and if running hi-res files on Foobar it is running nothing else. Right I'm listening to Stan Getz Live at Newport from Wolfgang's Vault so the browser is also running but the sound is superb. Need to look at an external hard drive now as the Sony has no room. The 24bit/192khz track I downloaded from www.2l.no was 3 minutes long and was 139Mb so it eats up disk space. My plan is currently centred around WV , join WVIP, listen to the streaming concerts , buy a hard drive and download the best at 192khz.

[Fran]

PC world have 1.5Tb seagate drives for €99 at the moment - bought one myself last week.


Fran